Dear Editor,
The High Court has now pronounced on the December 21 vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly. The Honourable Chief Justice, in separate decisions in three cases arising out of the vote, reaffirmed the ruling of the Speaker of the National Assembly that the ‘yes’ vote by an AFC Member of Parliament was valid and by a majority of 33 – 32, the Cabinet, including the President, automatically fell. A further consequence of the vote was that elections must be held within the constitutional timeframe of 90 days, meaning that those elections must be held no later than March 21, 2019, less than seven weeks from today.
The decisions in all three cases were well-researched, reasoned and argued. The delivery was commanding, with a good measure of grace and gravitas that makes one easily forget that these cases were started and completed within a fortnight, all by a single judge. By any standard, that is not only remarkable but probably unprecedented in Guyana’s legal history. If any proof was required to justify the confirmation of her position, the Chief Justice not only met but over the four hours of her oral delivery, exceeded the standard. It is time that we end this farce that seems to condemn their Honours Yonnette Cummings-Edwards and Roxane George-Wiltshire to acting positions.
Within the three cases, there was one other major issue decided by the Chief Justice. And that is that under Article 155 of the Constitution, a person who by his/her own act acquires a passport of a foreign power or state, cannot be a candidate for membership in the National Assembly. The effect is that members of both the APNU+AFC and the PPP/C who hold such dual citizenship can no longer sit in the National Assembly, and perhaps, more practically, those persons have to decide, well before the new elections, whether or not to give up their prized foreign passports.
Vice President Carl Greenidge, Minister Joseph Harmon and Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira have admitted to being foreign passport holders and can no longer remain a member of this current Parliament which is still to be dissolved. There is word that Ms Volda Lawrence is also the holder of a foreign passport, a matter which she needs to address with a simple admission or denial. Incredibly, Opposition members Messrs. Odinga Lumumba and Adrian Anamayah do not seem to know whether they are citizens and the Leader of the PPP/C List for the 2015 elections should call on them to clarify their status. Unless they do so immediately, they should be removed from the National Assembly. This applies too to Professor Harold Lutchman, the Leader of the APNU+AFC List for the 2015 elections.
If true, Lumumba and Anamayah, as well as Harmon, Greenidge and Teixeira, must know that they had falsely made a statutory oath in the nomination process concerning their citizenship status and are guilty of an offence for which the penalty is imprisonment. I think I know the Speaker well enough to presume that he will not tolerate this continued violation of the National Assembly and is fully aware that any Bill or Motion passed by the National Assembly from hereon on a vote by any of these persons is at least voidable, if not void.
The AFC leadership appears to have advised Minister Dominic Gaskin that because he was born in the UK and did not acquire his British passport by his own act, he was not in breach of the constitutional proscription. I hope that the clarity of the Chief Justice’s ruling – and her extensive reference to the Jamaican case of Dabdoud v Vaz who was born in Puerto Rico but renewed his US passport as an adult – will disabuse him of this notion and that he too is in contravention of the Constitution.
I understand that Attorney General Basil Williams is being blamed in some circles for not recognising the implications of challenging the eligibility of former MP Charrandass Persaud, who holds both Guyanese and Canadian citizenship. While I believe that the Attorney General does not always think through the implications of his statements and actions, I believe that on this occasion, the blame is wholly misdirected since it was not he who persuaded Mr Reid to attack Mr Charrandass’ disqualification for election to the National Assembly.
In fact, the AFC appears to have been in the forefront of the court challenge, possibly to detract from the fact that Charrandass Persaud was a member of that party. That suspicion is reinforced by the continuing posture of AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan, an attorney-at-law who is pushing the Attorney General to waste the State’s resources in pursuing an appeal against the rulings of the Chief Justice. In doing so, Mr Ramjattan and PNCR Minister Ronald Bulkan, who insist on the right of appeal, appear determined to put politics above democracy.
The decision by the Chief Justice, speaking for the Judiciary, has endorsed the ruling by the Speaker of the National Assembly, the second arm of the State. Yet, both Ramjattan, a representative of the AFC, and Ronald Bulkan of the PNCR as members of the Executive, are willing to reject the pronouncements of the other two arms, in defiance of the convention of comity and mutual respect. No doubt they will claim their right to appeal using the same arguments advanced before and so capably and clinically discredited by the Chief Justice.
This case has, in my mind, elevated the stature of the Judiciary and the Speaker and has done no little harm to the reputation of legal practitioners. In her stentorian but elegant style, the Chief Justice described some of the arguments as disingenuous while dismissing one argument advanced by Mr Reid’s attorney-at-law with the words “to describe it as preposterous would be an understatement.” Mr Nigel Hughes will find it hard to remove his authorship of the new mathematics of the majority while Mr Roysdale Forde, who ironically acted for Joseph Harmon, an Article 155 violator, ought to have found sobering the ease with which the Chief Justice despatched the majority of his arguments.
In my humble view, it would be unwise for these same attorneys to take this case any further. The right to Counsel can hardly include the right to abuse the legal process aimed at subverting the Constitution.
By any account, attention now moves to the President who needs to dissolve the National Assembly, and to GECOM which has the constitutional responsibility for the holding of elections within such time as is stipulated in the Constitution and any other laws not inconsistent with the Constitution. GECOM must act responsibly and ignore the antics and fatuities of the politicians. If GECOM and the Chief Elections Officer were unaware of the implications of the vote of no-confidence, they have been loudly informed and by implication, directed by the ruling of the Chief Justice: they have to hold elections on or before the 21st March 2019, unless extended by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly.
By taking effective action, the President will demonstrate that like President Hoyte in 1992, his commitment to democracy overrides his commitment to preserve party power. He will have shown that he understands that democracy includes mutual forbearance which “avoids actions which, while respecting the letter of the law, obviously violate its spirit.” He needs to demonstrate to the nation generally, and to Ramjattan and Bulkan in particular, that he understands that with democracy, we all win.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
